President Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed rescinding the Endangerment Finding – a move that would strip away the agency’s legal obligation to regulate the pollutants causing the climate crisis and a major handout to the worst emitters.

What is the Endangerment Finding? 

The Clean Air Act requires the EPA to protect people from any air pollutant “that may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.” In 2007, a Supreme Court decision affirmed that climate-warming pollutants are air pollutants as defined in the Clean Air Act. The EPA under the Obama administration determined that carbon dioxide, methane, and four other climate pollutants endanger public health and that the EPA has a legal obligation to regulate these emissions. This determination, known as the Endangerment Finding, has been upheld in multiple courts due to the overwhelming scientific evidence that supports it.

Why it’s under threat

The EPA has proposed changes to the interpretation of the Clean Air Act, arguing that greenhouses gases fall beyond its scope. The EPA is now reviewing comments on the proposed changes before issuing a final determination. If the administration does weaken protections, these changes will face legal opposition, but this Supreme Court could overturn their own 2007 decision that provided the legal basis for the Obama-era Endangerment Finding and allow the rescission to stand.

Why it matters

Protecting people

Rescinding the Endangerment Finding will endanger lives. The devastating impacts of the climate crisis make disasters more frequent and severe. Shifting weather patterns, droughts, flooding, and storms hit marginalized communities with few resources first and worst, causing unpredictable growing seasons, crop failures, and sharp increases in food prices. Climate-fueled disasters have become the number one driver of forced migration, displacing an estimated 22.4 million annually from 2008 to 2023. By overturning the Endangerment Finding and failing to mitigate the emissions causing the climate crisis, the actions of the EPA will most certainly result in an increase in humanitarian crises, placing even greater strain on an already diminished humanitarian response system.

Economic justice

Rescinding the Endangerment Finding is a handout to rich polluters, giving them free rein to dump super pollutants and other greenhouse gases into our environment, maximizing their own profit while making our communities pay the real cost. The EPA itself estimates that the Clean Air Act has created $2 trillion in U.S. economic benefits by cutting the pollution that sends people to the hospital, keeps workers home sick, and fuels chronic respiratory and heart conditions. We know that as women disproportionately care for sick family and community members, climate and clean air policies that improve our communities’ health also relieve a care burden at home.

Climate disasters also cost billions annually in damage to infrastructure, property, agriculture, and human health, and Oxfam estimates that the emissions of the super-rich 1% alone will cause $44 trillion in economic damage to low-and-middle income countries between 1990 and 2050. Even companies that believe they will benefit from deregulation could face hundreds of billions in losses annually as a result of climate disasters. Without action by major emitters like the United States, countries at the frontlines of the climate crisis will continue to bear the costs of a crisis they did not create.

America’s responsibility to act

Rescinding the Endangerment Finding is an abdication of the US government’s responsibility to contribute to critical global efforts and commitments aimed at combating this crisis, including the Paris Agreement. As the greatest historic emitter and a country with a great capacity to act, the US should be a leader in addressing climate change and not a laggard.

Unfortunately, this proposal is but one in a string of efforts to dodge responsibility for regulating harmful pollutants that damage the climate and threaten public welfare, including the methane Delay Rule – an attempt to delay enforcement of methane emissions standards for the fossil fuel industry – and the suspension of the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, which requires major emitters to track and report their greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, the administration has stunted the development of renewable energy projects around the country while accelerating the pace of new fossil fuel extraction/exploitation. These efforts will harm communities while benefiting the worst polluters, putting corporate profits above public health. Ordinary families will instead face increased electricity bills as the administration undercuts the development of cheap and reliable renewable energy.

Instead of rescinding the Endangerment Finding, the administration should pursue a sensible energy policy that protects public health, reduces pollutants, restores our electrical grid, and saves money.